Abstract

Over the centuries the soul has been a primary topic of philosophical inquiry in the West, and at issue in all speculations on the soul is the very nature of man himself. How does one explain the complexity of the human being as matter and spirit, and what might be the consequences thereof? ;This dissertation will compare the Thomistic and Cartesian doctrines on the nature of soul and its relationship to the body in order to determine the consequences of each for the issue of man's nature. The doctrines of Aquinas and Descartes were chosen for this comparison, as the notion of soul in each has had a great impact on the philosophical community, giving rise to myriad scholarly commentaries from disciples and critics alike. ;The primary research for this paper was undertaken through a careful study of the Prima pars of the Summa theologiae and the Summa Contra Gentiles II of Aquinas, along with Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy, Principles of Philosophy, and Passions of the Soul. Where appropriate, the discussion was supplemented by other Thomistic and Cartesian texts, and numerous secondary sources were also employed. Further research was devoted to the intellectual milieu in which each thinker lived and wrote. ;It is the contention of this writer that in considering the soul as the form of the body, Thomas Aquinas differentiated the human soul from angelic being, emphasized the continuity between the spiritual and material worlds of creation, and preserved the integrity of man, while at the same time, his metaphysical distinction between esse and essentia distinguished the nature of all created being from the nature of God. On the other hand, Descartes' rejection of substantial forms and his real distinction between res cogitans and res extensa irreconcilably separated the spiritual from the material world and, in the process, compromised the unity of man. Moreover, the only distinction between God and created intellectual substance appears to be a modal one, i.e., infinite and finite existence, respectively. Therefore, I have concluded that the consequences of the Cartesian doctrine of soul result in the "deification" of man in that the nature of man must ultimately be identified as "thinking thing," i.e., intellectual substance, existing, along with angelic being, in a finite mode